Saturday, March 7, 2015

USA February 2015

The current sales surprise

Red Edition

6.748 plug-ins were sold in the US, an improvement over the previous month, but a 7% decrease over the same month last year, with the top three ending the month close to each other, with only 109 units separating the First (Nissan Leaf - 1.198) from the Third (BMW i3 - 1.089 units), a deserved mention to the little Bimmer, while the market is softening and has just entered the dreaded the Red Zone (12.573 sales YTD vs 12.740 last year), the german hatch has pulled its second best ever performance, with 1.089 sales, placing it in Third and with the top two not that far off, if BMW can work out the production constraints regarding carbon fiber, we could still see the i3 on the podium by the end of this year.

Behind the podium seats, we find the Chevy Volt, waiting for the new Gen to arrive, followed by the Energi brothers from Ford, with the MPV C-Max having surpassed this month the agonizing Prius Plug-In, falling into consecutive new lows (401 units in January, 397 now), while at the same time slipping down on the ranking (It's now #7).

Behind the Prius it appears the first of the "C" division (As in Compliance Division), with the Mercedes B-Class ED leading the pack, followed closely by the VW e-Golf, while in #10 we now have the Fiat 500e, which benefited from a sales stumble of the Smart Fortwo ED (Only 76 units sold), which dropped from #10 to #12.

A final report on the manufacturers ranking, with four(!) brands fighting for Number One, Nissan is ahead (18% Share and 2.268 units), followed closely by Ford (17%, 2.152), Tesla (17%, 2.111) and BMW (16%, 1.957 units), this will be an entertaining fight that Chevrolet (#5, with 11% Share) will be looking to join once the 2nd Gen Volt is up and running.